To Love Is To Be Vulnerable
by Melissa King
June 17, 2005

From The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

"To Love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it in tact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in a casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.  The only place you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.

I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God's will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness.  It is like hiding the talent in a napkin and for much the same reason.  'I knew thee that thou wert a hard man.' Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness.  If a man is not uncalculating towards the earthly beloveds whom he has seen, he is none the more likely to be so towards God whom he has not.  We shall draw nearer to God, not be trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armor.  If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it." 

There are people of many different faiths and belief systems that read this newsletter and I would not share something from my own faith if I did not feel that it would support your journey or spark some thoughts about a particular subject wherever you are coming from.

Is There One Place Where Your Heart Is Too Hard?

When reading the above quote by C.S. Lewis, it's easy to say..."That is not me, I am opening my heart to loving and taking the risk!"  But I would take a second look.  We all fail at this.  We all protect ourselves to insure our own self-interest...and like C.S. Lewis says, we eventually will become harder and impenetrable.

So I challenge you to look at one area where you may be becoming "hardened."  What is just one thing you can do to make that place in your hear just a little bit softer?